5 reasons to secure and govern data with Microsoft Purview

Is your organisation overwhelmed by data, struggling to transform it into an asset? As data governance and compliance become increasingly important, having a comprehensive solution to manage, protect, and leverage your data is crucial. Microsoft Purview offers a robust data governance and compliance framework, ensuring your data is well-organised and secure. With Purview, your data environment is protected and optimised for future innovations, including the seamless integration of AI tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Figure 1: Microsoft Purview: Comprehensive solutions for Data Security, Governance, and Risk & Compliance. Source: Microsoft

When was the last time you reviewed your data compliance & governance posture in Microsoft 365?

To help you understand how Microsoft Purview can benefit your organisation, let’s explore its top five features and their practical applications.

Feature 1: Unified Data Governance

Unified Data Governance in Microsoft Purview centralises data management across an organisation. It integrates data from various sources into a single framework, enabling efficient discovery, classification, and control of data. This includes tools for cataloguing, mapping, and assessing data quality, sensitivity, and compliance.

Why it matters

Managing diverse data effectively is essential for compliance, quality, and protection. Unified Data Governance provides a holistic view of the data landscape, aiding informed decisions, ensuring regulatory compliance, and safeguarding data assets. As illustrated in Figure 2, Microsoft Purview integrates with cloud providers, on-premises infrastructure, and SaaS applications to automate metadata management and provide comprehensive data estate insights. This integration highlights the importance of a unified approach to data governance, offering a seamless solution that spans various data sources and environments.

Figure 2: Microsoft Purview integrates with cloud providers, on-premises infrastructure, and SaaS applications to automate metadata management and provide comprehensive data estate insights. Source: Microsoft

By addressing these common pain points, Unified Data Governance in Microsoft Purview provides a robust solution for organisations looking to enhance their data management practices.

Feature 2: Data discovery and classification

Data Discovery and Classification in Microsoft Purview involves identifying, cataloguing, and categorising data across an organisation. This helps you understand your data inventory, location, and sensitivity, enabling effective management and protection. As seen in Figure 3, the classification insights provided by Microsoft Purview offer a detailed view of how data is categorised, including metadata, lineage, and sensitivity labels.

How data discovery and classification works

Practical benefits of data discovery and classification

• Improved data visibility: Gain a comprehensive view of your data, including its location, usage, and access.
• Sensitive data identification: Automatically identify and label sensitive data, aiding compliance with regulations such as GDPR, HIPAA, and ISO standards.
• Risk management and compliance: Implement security measures by knowing the location and access details of sensitive data, reducing data leak risks and improving security posture.
• Efficient data management: Centralised data discovery and classification simplify managing data across systems, resolving data quality issues, and providing reliable business insights.
• Optimised data usage: Understand the data landscape to transform raw data into valuable insights, fostering business innovation.

By ensuring that your data environment is well-organised and classified with Purview, you prepare it for the efficient use of AI-driven tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, which thrive on well-structured data.

Figure 3: Screenshot of the Microsoft Purview portal showing the "Classification insights" section, which lists various data classifications along with details such as categories, the number of subscriptions, sources, and associated files. Source: Microsoft

Feature 3: Data Lifecycle Management

Data Lifecycle Management (DLM) is managing data from creation to deletion. Effective DLM ensures data is retained, protected, and disposed of efficiently and complies with regulations. This helps you manage risk, reduce storage costs, and comply with legal requirements.

Are you a data lifecycle management leader or follower?

Source: Microsoft.com, Microsoft State of Industry 2020​

How it works

Microsoft Purview's Data Lifecycle Management automates the retention, deletion, and storage of data using advanced policies and rules. It connects to various data sources (e.g., SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Teams) to apply these policies consistently. Purview simplifies data management, enhances protection, and optimises data use, making it crucial for navigating modern data complexities while ensuring compliance and security. As your organisation begins to explore AI capabilities like Microsoft 365 Copilot, having robust data lifecycle management in place ensures a smooth transition and maximises the potential of AI.

Practical benefits of data lifecycle management

• Streamlined data management: Eliminates duplicate information and ensures data integrity.

• Enhanced compliance: Automates compliance with consistent retention and deletion policies.

• Reduced risk: Minimises data breaches and legal issues with secure and consistent handling.

• Cost savings: Reduces storage costs by automatically deleting redundant, obsolete, and trivial (ROT) data.

Feature 4: Sensitive data protection

Sensitive data protection safeguards critical information from unauthorised access, breaches, and misuse, ensuring data integrity, confidentiality, and regulatory compliance (GDPR, HIPAA, ISO).

How it works

• Data classification and labelling: Uses built-in and custom classifiers to identify and label sensitive data across sources (e.g., SharePoint, OneDrive, Exchange, Teams) with labels such as "confidential," "personal," or "financial."
• Policy enforcement: Defines and implements data protection policies to control access, editing, and sharing of sensitive data, and enforces encryption for data in transit and at rest.
• Monitoring and auditing: Continuously monitors data activities, enforces compliance, and provides detailed reports and dashboards to track usage, access patterns, and potential security threats.

Practical benefits of sensitive data protection

• Enhanced data security: Protects critical data from unauthorised access and breaches.
• Regulatory compliance: Meets standards like GDPR and HIPAA by identifying, labelling, and applying controls to sensitive data.
• Prevent data loss: Restricts access and sharing based on rules.
• Improved data governance: Monitors and audits data usage and access patterns.
• Cost efficiency: Avoids costs associated with data breaches and reduces manual effort in managing data security.

As shown in Figure 4, Microsoft Purview offers a unified approach to sensitive data protection by combining data classification, policy management, monitoring, and auditing into a cohesive system. This integrated platform ensures that your data is protected and managed in compliance with the latest regulatory requirements, minimising risks and enhancing overall data governance.

Figure 4: Microsoft Purview: Know, Protect, Prevent Loss, and Manage Your Information with an Intelligent Platform.

Microsoft Purview is powered by an intelligent platform that provides unified automatic data classification, policy management, analytics, and APIs. This comprehensive approach allows organisations to understand their data landscape, apply flexible protection actions, detect risky behaviour, and retain, delete, and store data compliantly.

Feature 5: eDiscovery and legal hold

eDiscovery (Electronic Discovery) in Microsoft Purview enables organisations to identify, collect, and produce electronically stored information (ESI) for legal cases and investigations. Legal Hold ensures that relevant data is preserved and protected from tampering.

Managing data efficiently while meeting legal and regulatory requirements can be challenging, particularly without a centralised eDiscovery solution. Microsoft Purview addresses these challenges by centralising data management, streamlining the eDiscovery process, and ensuring secure, compliant handling of information. This approach helps organisations maintain data integrity and minimise legal risks. As AI becomes more integrated into workflows with tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, having a strong eDiscovery and legal hold strategy in place with Purview will be essential in maintaining compliance and reducing legal risks.

How it works

1. 1. eDiscovery:

• Identification: Locates relevant data across various sources.
• Collection: Gathers identified data while maintaining its integrity.
• Processing and review: Filters and reviews collected data.
• Exporting: Produces data in a legally acceptable format.

2. 2. Legal Hold:

• Placement of holds: Applies holds on data to ensure it is preserved.
• Management: Monitors and manages active holds.

Practical benefits of eDiscovery and legal hold

• Compliance: Ensures adherence to legal and regulatory requirements.
• Risk management: Reduces the risk of data spoliation and legal penalties.
• Efficiency: Streamlines the process of locating and producing relevant data for legal matters.
• Data security: Protects sensitive information during legal holds.
  
  

Essential solution for modern data management

Microsoft Purview offers a robust solution for data governance and compliance, addressing the challenges of managing and protecting data in today's complex environments. By integrating features such as Unified Data Governance, Data Discovery and Classification, Data Lifecycle Management, Sensitive Data Protection, and eDiscovery and Legal Hold, Purview provides a comprehensive suite for modern data management. As your organisation looks to harness the power of AI and tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot, ensuring your data governance is optimised with Purview will set the foundation for future success.

Ready to take your data management to the next level? Partner with The Missing Link to implement Microsoft Purview. With our expert guidance and continuous support, we’ll ensure you have the flexibility and scalability to adapt as your data landscape evolves. Begin your journey towards effective governance and AI readiness by scheduling a discovery workshop with us today.